Interesting Fact: The blue-sided tree frog has some ability to change colour, becoming darker green and bluish-purple at night.

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The blue-sided tree frog is a highly colourful amphibian, with pink, lavender, orange and blue on its limbs and sides, and green on its upper surface. The large eyes of the blue-sided tree frog are yellow-orange, and give the frog its other common name: the golden-eyed leaf frog. Juveniles lack the blue colouration of the adults.

The blue-sided tree frog is nocturnal and arboreal. Male blue-sided tree frogs call to attract a mate, giving a repeated ‘wor-or-orp’. The female deposits the eggs on top of leaves above still water. After hatching, the tadpole of the blue-sided tree frog falls, either intentionally or accidentally, into the pond below where it matures into an adult frog.

The blue-sided tree frog is endemic to Costa Rica, and can be found on the slopes of the cordilleras of northern and central Costa Rica. Today, the species remains almost exclusively in disturbed and polluted habitat in areas around Costa Rica’s capital city of San José.

The blue-sided tree frog has suffered an estimated 50 percent loss in population since the 1990s. This can be attributed to fungal disease, larvae predation by an introduced fish species, and the international pet trade. In 2007, the United States alone was reported to have imported 221,960 Agalychnis frogs over the previous decade.

Given the threats to the survival of the blue-sided tree frog and other species in the genus Agalychnis, all Agalychnis species have been granted protection under Appendix II of CITES. The creation of a captive breeding programme for the long-term survival of the blue-sided tree frog has been recommended by the IUCN.